2020-06-06

Just like with the massive violent negro protests in America, suddenly when it requires their pet causes to be impacted the Viro Fascists suddenly remember that governments are supposed to be very very narrow in how much they restrict the liberties of their citizenry.

"We don't know how long police are going to have access to this data, what they're going to do to it," said Alexander McClelland, a criminology scholar and spokesperson for an advocacy group dubbed We Can't Police Our Way Out of a Pandemic.

Hey Alex, why don't you tell that to the British constabulary? Or, for that matter, the Toronto one.
But who is Alexander McClelland? If your first guess was pillow biter who wants to apologize for the fact his European ancestors did a better job of managing Upper Canada than the Red Indians who wasted away in it, you get a bonus ribbon.

In other words, if you want to know why evil poofters who spread AIDS weren't liable in Canada while people who spread other fatal diseases were (the Supreme Court struck down that nonsense in 2012), McClelland is the man ass pirate responsible.
Regardless, you can look far and wide for McClelland speaking out against "nonessential" business closures or police creepily monitoring church parking lots. But as soon as a homeless niggerfag is given the same ticket as an employed white person and forced to identify himself, he's all over the "inequality" of it: because in far-left academia, treating everybody equal is somehow "inequality".

McClelland said advocates have already learned of one instance in which a member of a racialized community had her privacy and human rights violated based on a COVID-19 diagnosis.

See? When it's a "racialized community member" its bad. Doubleplus bad.

Scassa said such personal details are rife for misuse in any context, adding the Ontario law should require first responders to prove they're requesting such details for a specific purpose related to the pandemic.
She said the government would be wise to consider striking a more appropriate balance between public health and privacy concerns, noting such matters will become increasingly important as the first wave of the outbreak wanes and contact tracing efforts ramp up.
"Trust is something that is really important in this context," she said. "It's worth being thoughtful about the balance."

In the great list of freedoms that Canadians have lost, the freedom not to have governments record us in their databases wasn't that strong to begin with. It certainly isn't the first one that governments need to stop stamping out.

This year, the Chinese Coronavirus did the job: due to continued social distancing regulations, the group whose disgusting lifestyle choice makes them curiously susceptible to the Wuhan Flu have to wait until September. Why September? Because that's their second fagwalk, of course.

Here is a problem in "values" of the type that modern social studies teachers are encouraged to pose. Several men are out in the woods hunting. Suddenly one of them sees something move in the bush. At last, he rejoices, a deer. Then a warning flashes through his mind. That might not be a deer. That might be one of the other hunters. Question for the class: Should the hunter fire at the thing if there's a chance it's another human being? The approved answer is no.

I encountered serious trouble once by asking this question on a CBC television program. In fact, the tape was killed, the program was never run, and I was never invited back. For the man I asked the question of was the celebrated Dr. Henry Morgentaler, who was currently making his appeal of a conviction for performing abortions. He was one of the current heroes of the CBC and I was supposed to know that you therefore did not ask him questions that were "hypothetical" or "unfair."

The question may be hypothetical but it is certainly not unfair. The doctor, along with other liberals who defend this hideous practice, in effect argue as follows: we do not know at what point during pregnancy a fetus or an embryo becomes, in fact, a human being - whether at the instant of conception, or at the instant of birth, or at some other intervening stage. Because of this uncertainty, abortion may be permitted at some elementary phase of growth. In other words, since we do not know whether the thing is human or isn't, then it is all right to kill it, the very reverse of the conclusion that sane people would reach in the case of the hunter. The moral principle must surely be: if you don't know, you don't kill it. The abortionist argues: if you don't know, you may.

It is necessary to understand that this is all highly relevant. Abortion in Alberta is no rare occurrence. The demand for abortion is increasing alarmingly, much to the disgust of the doctors who perform it (Who cannot say who have to perform it because no doctor has to perform it.) Foothills Hospital in Calgary and the Royal Alexandra in Edmonton, institutions designed for the saving of human life and well respected for their success thereat, are in this case gaining and undesired reputation for the destruction of life. And the presence of a congenial hospital in Ponoka produces statistics which give that centre the humiliating title of "Abortion Capital of Alberta."

Lay people are not encouraged to know the repulsive details of these "operations". One anti-abortion group some years ago distributed photographs of the process, too obscene to describe. Suffice it to say, it is not a picturesque affair. The essentials of personality, we are told, are carried like a computer program in the original cell. The eye forms early on, reflecting, as it always will something of the personality. The abortionist trains himself, no doubt, not to observe that human eye staring at him as it is scraped off into the garbage bag. If the mere mention of these things is reprehensible, then what of the deed itself?

We look to the moral authorities of our age for help in this regard and we get none, save as usual from the Catholic and fundamentalist churches which tell us unequivocally that it is a form of murder. My chuch, the Anglican, is acting on this question with accustomed inscrutability. Several of the bishops said they were dead set against it. A priestess from one of our temples in Vancouver said that she didn't care what the bishops or the church said, she was going to keep on recommending it anyway. And a bishop declared boldly that he favored "compassion," presumably for the mother. For the baby he apparently favored the garbage bag. So it went back to committee while the church waits for its values to "clarify." One suspects, of course, that what we are really waiting for is to see which side proves most popular and wins. We will then come out strongly for that side. Thus we Anglicans have resolved the old question of whether the church or the Bible is infallible. Actually it turned out to be the Gallup Poll.

And finally we have the newspapers. The Edmonton Journal, that fearless defender of safe causes, has been predictably silent about this cause. It likes to blame the frequency of abortion on the minister of education who refuses to give little girls lessons in sex and the pill. But as to abortion itself, the Journal prefers this, no doubt, to the "conscience of the individual." Like the bishop, it presumably means the individual mother, not the individual in the garbage bag. The Journal of course knows that if it declared itself wholly in favor of abortion, that might cause spate of subscription cancellations or other unprofitable things. We have thereby reached the point at which the Journal becomes profoundly objective. The Calgary Herald is similarly discreet.

So we allow the practice to become rampant. We ignore it. We tell ourselves that since it happens to frequently it must be acceptable. We are assured too by the scientific ethos which enfolds it. It takes place in the most sensible and hygienic way, surrounded by technology, authorized by committees, advocated by respectable political activists. We do not suspect that another age may recoil in horror at the whole spectacle of what we are doing, and condemn it as we condemn the grand scale slaughters worked by other establishments in other days who were equally confident of what they were doing. That would be a time when the mere mention of a grandfather who worked in such-and-such a hospital would occasion an awkward silence in the conversation, and when the name of a town called Ponoka would carry with it the same connotation as that of another town calls Auschwitz. - July 25, 1980

In today's world the CBC segment was carried live, and therefore the tape couldn't be killed and instead of never running the program the far-left CBC hosts ganged up on Stockwell and made him persona non grata for the crime of saying a true thing that goes against their orthodoxy.

Of course, this week notwithstanding Stockwell Day is no Ted Byfield. Byfield never would apologize. The same lack of a killer instinct that cost us a Canadian Alliance government in 2001 has left CBC Power and Politics with yet one fewer principled conservative voice.

2020-06-05

With Canada now suffering ridiculous protests about claims of "systemic racism", it's time to remember back at a couple posts a decade when this "white privilege" nonsense was first taking root (and sadly, in Alberta, is still being claimed despite it being a lie.

Last week at the bar K'mpec made basically this same argument: isn't it awesome that the NHL is going to be playing hockey in Edmonton?

No, not really. Jones lays out most of the arguments right away, actually:

I mean, the games would be played in Rogers Place with no fans in the stands. Why bother to bid for a sports event that nobody is going to be able to attend?

Why bid on an event where nobody is likely to eyeball any of the players on the 12 teams or many of the famous faces in hockey or in the broadcasting business anywhere around town?

It seems silly to some to work so hard to bring 12 teams to town to perform in what would amount to one giant, glorified television studio.

It makes since to bid for a Grey Cup and have a budget of $14 million because the event brings thousands of people to the city and has a huge economic impact.

Jones' defense is similar to the one he used for the World Championships in Athletics back in 2001: it helps raise our international profile:

There’s what amounts to free advertising for the benefits of holding events in Rogers Place.

“First of all there would be the credibility of just being selected as a Hub City,” said Ballantyne.

“Certainly we would want to showcase Rogers Place. We think it’s the best building in the NHL. The opportunity to work with the league and pull something this significant off in such a trying time would just earn you so much credibility as a franchise and as a city.

“The players, who voted Edmonton as having the No. 2 ice in the league and No. 1 visiting dressing room in the league, know all about Rogers Place. But for players (think potential free agents) and their families to experience the city in the summer, might cure some of those perception problems.”

But what you get is between 50 and 81 games telecast out of each Hub City complete with what the TV people call “beauty shots” from around the city for the openings, coming back from commercials and at the start of every period. You also have repeated references to the city during the broadcasts.

“Edmonton is a small market cold-weather city. It would be an excellent opportunity to showcase our city in the summer and we don’t think you could put a price tag on that,” said Shipton.

“We think there’s going to be a voracious appetite for hockey when it comes back. Sports fans have had a big void in their lives. We think the broadcast numbers are going to far exceed what they were heading into the playoffs.

“For fans from all around the world see the video of the city during each game in July, August and September say ‘Gee, Edmonton, that’s not the way I pictured it in mid-February at 40 below, it look pretty beautiful.’ There aren;’t many more beautiful places than Edmonton in the summer.”

I remain unconvinced. Quick, where were the last two World Championships in Athletics held? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? The 2019 event was held in the capital city of Qatar and I'm not going to say the city's name and you aren't going to know it without looking it up. The 2017 event was in London. You've heard of London, but I'm going to go on a whim and say that you knew London England existed before 2017 (unless you were born after 2015). So much for raising the international profile. The World Championships in Athletics were also held in the beautiful August 3-August 12th timeframe, do you think a lot of people around the world heard about how beautiful the city looked? No, they heard about how the Daily Telegraph called the city boring and soullless.

“When it comes to the economic impact, people are discounting it,” said VP Communications Tim Shipton who along with VP Operations Stuart Ballantyne are the Oilers Entertainment Group point people on the project.

“But there’s still a pretty significant economic impact. There are jobs. Certainly there will be arena jobs. There’s economic impact in Ice District with the J.W. Marriott being full, all the meeting rooms being full, and all the other hotels in the downtown core that we would need in order to house the referees, linemen, broadcasters and all the other people involved.

“Most of these hotels are closed right now.

“There’s going to be the requirement for bussing to and from practice rinks and to and from some of the hospitality we’d put together, booking golf courses and other activities and events. The real winner would be the city to have that shot in the arm.

“Just the testing component for coronavirus would involve a local testing company. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman talked about a figure of $3 million U.S. for testing. You get into the tens of millions pretty quick in an economy that’s in the toilet right now,” Shipton added.

Premier Jason Kenney said it would be the best free publicity since the Calgary 1988 Olympic Winter Games. And he’s right. But Calgary 1988 wasn’t free. This is.

Yes yes the economic benefits aren't nothing. But from an Edmonton based hockey fan perspective I can't see the reason to get exicted. As I allude to in the post's title, we aren't going to really notice the difference other than recognizing the logo during all the games (presuming they don't cover it up anyways). We aren't going to see Chris Pronger at Billiard's Club, or George Laraque at Squires, or even the sexy 2001 Jamaican beach volleyball team on the LRT†.

The NHL's biggest stars come to town and it will ultimately just be a piece of trivia. Now sure we can go out to the bars and (kind of, 6' apart) party it up, especially when the Oilers make a deep Cup run. But we could do that anywhere the games are played: it's not like an Oilers game has to be at home in order to get fans out at the bar: after all, the picture you see at right was taken on May 27th when the Oilers won Game 5 of the Conference Finals in Anaheim. That was the infamous "destroyed telephone booth" incident that caused Edmonton City Police to overreact and crackdown on "crazy partiers" that look positively calming in the wake of the violent riots in the United States this week.‡

† I, uh, didn't get her number. And since this is 2001, I meant her ICQ number.‡ Violent blacks get away with murder, partying whites are cracked down on for pushing a shopping cart down a closed street. White privilege eh?

2020-06-04

I'm thinking of starting #PlywoodThursday, when SteynOnline covers up its logo with a sheet of plywood in solidarity with all those convenience stores and all-night pharmacies trying to ward off the looters. Perhaps we'll get a hashtag - #FunctioningSocietyMatters, if only to a few of us.

The New Normal and the Old Normal operate simultaneously: it's illegal to barbecue a steak in your backyard but feel free to barbecue the entire supermarket you got it from. The internal contradictions of Lockdownistan holding state-approved riots are no problem for a skilled commissar like New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy:

He addressed the apparent disconnect between his own executive order shutting down nonessential businesses and his support for the protests, which concentrated populations in violation of social distancing.

'It's one thing to protest – I don't want to make light of this and I'll probably get lit up by everybody who owns a nail salon in the state, but it's one thing to protest what day nail salons are opening and it's another to come out in peaceful protest overwhelmingly about somebody who was murdered right before our eyes.'

Oh, okay, then. In the new America, business is non-essential but riots are essential.

In other words, this sort of blather below is taking what is a general principle of society (Safeway cashiers have to pass a security background check, for example) and trying to make it sound like it exclusively or even predominantly a racial issue.

Exactly the sort of lies that the #BlackLivesMatter crowd have been spreading through sympathetic media without anybody being allowed to counteract it.

“I learned,” he began, before pausing. “That the National Football League is one of the few places ...”

Another pause.

“Where a young black man ...”

Still another pause.

“Can make a whole bunch of mistakes ...”

Shorter pause.

“And still get a second chance.”

The exchange stood out because I hadn’t asked anything about race. No one had been steering the conversation in that direction during Carter’s media availability

What it told me is that Carter, who had a series of problems with drugs and alcohol early in his career – mistakes that differentiate him from the acts of social conscience that got Colin Kaepernick exiled from the NFL – related his NFL experience to what he knew to be true in so much else of America. He understood he was provided a wider margin of error in professional football because of what he could deliver on the field.

He wasn’t so much making a statement about the NFL, but about life beyond the NFL. Carter was acknowledging that those second chances aren’t afforded to black men in many other professions or walks of life.

If it's "time for a reckoning" then be prepared for it to go against you
If Derek Chauvin is found Not Guilty, will you accept that it might be justice done correctly and that the black community needs to take stock of its crimes as well?

I don't yet know if probable rapist Evander Kane is sincere when he says that he's hoping for "a real dialogue", or that Aliu (who listens to shitty nigger music) is serious when he says "meaningful dialogue" is a "great start", but somehow I don't think so. Kane also wants "real change"... well what if at the end of this "meaningful dialogue" we as a society or lawmakers or even emboldened individuals decide we don't want "real change"? Will you accept that? Or is this all empty talk where you insist on pushing your narrative onto the rest of us?

“We’re a league of meritocracy,” Fangio said. “You earn what you get, you get what you earn. I don’t see racism at all in the NFL. I don’t see discrimination in the NFL. We live in a great atmosphere. ... We’re lucky. We all live together joined as one for one common goal, and we all intermingle and mix tremendously. If society reflected an NFL team, we’d all be great.”

Better tell Akin Aliu then to stop whining endlessly about Colin Kaepernick, a man who (like sodomite Michael Sam before him) couldn't crack a CFL lineup and then claimed "discrimination".

Tucker Carlson looks at all ten cases in 2019 where an unarmed black was shot and killed by police, He notes 5/10 attacked officers and 1 was deemed an accident. In 2/4 remaining cases officers were charged.

Only post a blank black image on all social media platforms for solidarity

Suspend all music streams and Youtube streams for the day

Cancel/close/suspend participation in all dance studios, classes, and meetings

Identify ways to help your community

Strengthen your knowledge on contemporary race relations and the history of black social, political, and economic plights in the US.

Okay okay, don't post on social media, put a stupid empty picture up on your profile, don't listen to music for a day, fine fine. Wait, what's next?

Sticking it to whitey by cancelling dance studios

Seriously? Cancel dance studios? That's the number one real-world item on their list? Look, I understand blacks are pretty bad at productive business activities. We've known that for ages. Nonwhites only make up 17.5% of all businesses in the USA and a large number of those, and the ones with the most wealth, are owned by asians (try not to act surprised). Even forgetting ownership, apparently as few blacks work in offices or even factories as you might guess based on the fact that "meetings" was thrown in as an afterthought. It's just a giant gaping hole in their cultural awareness.

In fact let's swing back now to the music streams, because I think I have to reevaluate my interpretation: I had assumed that negroes weren't going to listen to music: I think now that they are planning to cutoff livestreams they are in. For example...

Meanwhile when it comes to "ways to help your community"...well, maybe tell your thug friends to stop rioting and smashing their cities? As for "strengthening your knowledge" one of the problems with #BlackLivesMatter and all these idiotic far-left groups is they don't actually have any knowledge. Again, they love to blame "racism" for everything from why they can't hold a job (even when they're constantly late for work) to the fact that they are dying from a disease that presumably doesn't care what skin colour you are. The reality is that culture matters, individual choices matter, and the cumulative effect of individual choices often influenced by culture can have some crazy macroeconomic indicators that lead to socioeconomic plights that unfortunately spill into political "plights".

By the end of #BlackOutTuesday, U.S. negroes will be worse off than they were on Monday. By Thursday if these movements aren't stopped they will be worse off still. Pretending that it's caused by external factors and not looking within will continue to perpetuate the condition.

It's your daily reminder that apparently everything is controversial to the far-left feminazis and that you can't make them happy (even with a dick in the mouth) and therefore you might as well not even bother.

In one of the live sessions, when Luisana spoke over her husband, he got annoyed and elbowed her. He immediately followed it up by pushing her close to him and hugging her, which led to her apologizing to him.

When fans saw the bizarre interaction between the couple, they felt that the singer was being too "harsh" and "aggressive" towards his wife and soon began expressing their concerns for Luisana. Things got worse when in an earlier video, he could be heard declaring to his wife that she is dead to him, after she got a couple of minutes late for their filming. Fans perceived it as a regular pattern of behavior in their household and called out the singer for his remarks.

And then you watch the video:
That was the entirety of the "elbow" and the "pushing her close" incident. A nudge and a slight pull in. That was the incident that was "controversial" and "got fans upset"? If this is "abuse" to these people then you might as well just beat the shit out of her. You'll be hated and accused either way, so at least get your shots in.

The health crisis has shone a light on the crucial role asylum seekers and others with precarious status play in the province's economy, with thousands working as patient attendants in long-term care homes and filling other essential jobs.

They work long hours in meat-packing plants and warehouses, or tending to elderly people in long-term care homes — low-paying jobs that are difficult to fill.

But they may not be able to stay in Canada when deportations, which have nearly ground to a halt during the COVID-19 crisis, resume.

Good. As the above passage notes, the exact same sectors that are illegally hiring these illegal fake refugees are also the sectors suffering most from COVID, mostly because as any resident of Brooks can tell you, these third world filth live in squalour and illegally pack themselves into the residences they have been provided.

They brought in this virus. They spread this virus. They have no place in Canada. As soon as we can deport the survivors they need to be on the first leaky boat home.

And of course Antifa and its unholy brethren of anarchist groups are going to target your Democrat-run city for a night of the ol’ ultra-violence…Where else are they going to riot? First off, monsters always seek to kill their creators. But there is also the reality of the logistics of the situation: Antifa knows Democrats are cucks who will allow them to riot. Antifa knows Democrat-run cities have gun control laws that ensure you remain defenseless.

Now seems like a good time to tell you about my weekend…

Out here in the sticks — you know, Rural America, that place you oh-so sophisticated Blue State Dwellers call the hinterlands, it was — no joke — the most beautiful weekend of the year. It was just perfect, and everyone in my neighborhood mowed their lawns and grilled meat while the kids rode bikes… I topped my Saturday night with a good book and a Pabst Blue Ribbon tallboy on the porch followed by a Western on my 60-inch plasma. I then went to bed with the windows open so my wife and I could fall asleep to the sound of crickets and the smell of freshly cut grass. And I did it all again on Sunday (except I watched a war movie instead of a Western)…

Now, I’m no idiot. There are always two loaded firearms within reach of my bed. But that’s about preparation, not fear, and if Antifa (or anyone) is ever stupid enough to move their marauding to my neck of the woods, all they’re going to discover are alert dogs, security lights, and patriots who believe in the Second Amendment.

The answer, ironically, comes as much from Dachau as it does from the violent niggers of the 1960s racial protests. In 1967 three nights of violence rocked North Minneapolis and chased out much of the 'white' population...but even that isn't quite accurate because the ethnic group that fled wasn't white but Jewish. Following WWII anti-Jewish sentiment rapidly declined which left the Jews who had been living in the slum of North Minneapolis start to expand out into the rest of the city. By 1967 the city even had a Jewish mayor. That set the niggers off though: now that Jews were using their economic skills (a small scale version of this old joke of mine from a few years back) to improve their lot in life that caused resentment from the unemployable-since-the-cotton-ginny crowd. Jewish businesses were firebombed, Jewish business owners were beaten, even a Jewish city councilor was Moltov-cocktailed. As with so many U.S. cities in the years after the Long Hot Summer the niggers got what they wished: even more of the city to themselves. Likewise as with so many U.S. cities in the years after the Long Hot Summer it turns out that without the whites and the Jews the economic prospects of the city dry up and the incompetent thugs left in charge can't maintain the lifestyle that they seem to think is inherent in a system and not built on the sweat of the entrepreneurs. So that's the story of how the city overall started its decent. But even that isn't the whole story: after all, 1968 to 1980 apparently was mostly a shifting of neighbourhoods rather than a wholesale abandonment of the city.

As one final aside, the Cavanaugh article discusses the aftermath of an incident where a black suspect was shot and killed:

Last year, for example, after a non-white police officer (Jeronimo Yanez) shot and killed a black suspect (Philando Castile), just about every state politician groveled:

Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges: “My heart is heavy at the tragic death of Philando Castile, known to so many as a kind, caring man whom children loved.”

Senator Al Franken: “I am horrified that we are forced to confront yet another death of a young African-American man at the hands of law enforcement.”

Congressman Keith Ellison, whose district includes a big chunk of Minneapolis: ““We live in a world where certain Americans live in fear that their name will become a hashtag. It is not enough to say ‘Black Lives Matter.’ It’s time to make the system mean it.”

Governor Mark Dayton : “Would this have happened if the driver were white, if the passengers were white? I don’t think it would have.” After a jury found Officer Yanez innocent, the governor proposed spending $12 million on “police training” in a program named for Castile.

Two years ago, the same governor said: “Minnesota is not like it was 30, 50 years ago . . . . If you are that intolerant, if you are that much of a racist or a bigot, then find another state . . . . Our economy cannot expand based on white, B+, Minnesota-born citizens.” (He was right about one thing; Minnesota doesn’t look like it used to, as I documented here.) Governor Dayton’s comments were in response to growing tension between Somalis and whites over Somali sympathy and material aid for ISIS, Somali violent crime such as the mass stabbing in a mall last year, and Somali welfare use. Shops now even put up signs saying they accept welfare — not just in Spanish but in Somali, too

You may be asking why this is such a big deal. I have two former coworkers at different companies in Edmonton and the greater area who are getting Fridays off until further notice. The Shiny Pony is floating a 4-day workweek, these guys are living it (and the 20% pay cut that comes with it)! They are still coming into work and yet their pay is being cut.

Canada's arts community has already begun presenting me with its laundry list of pet demands, apparently forgetting their recent history. This is the inbred group of self-important "arts" peddlars who claim to be "speaking for the country" yet not a one of them was speaking for the 5 million Canadians who voted for our era of optimistic change in Canada, our return to the country that is respected and admired in the world for more than just a couple of homosexual weddings and cozying up to the likes of Fidel Castro and Alec Baldwin. If Canada's creative minds are unable to diversify themselves to reflect the full spectrum of beliefs in this country than I do not see any reason that a Conservative government whom these people campaigned so vigorously against should now succumb to their demands just in time for another election where we will be campaigned against. When we start seeing popular musicians in this country supporting a fair flat tax structure or singing about the inherent waste of government in their song, or watch Canadian playwrights bring to the theatre a play who's message is the strength and the beauty present in the traditional family, or take the family to see a Canadian filmmaker's bold portrayal of a world where gun ownership is universal and legal not to the detriment of society but to its peacefulness and flourish, perhaps when we see some of these things our administration can take seriously the increased funding requests by the arts lobbyists. I do not however see today a request by a constituency that wants to fund art, I see a constituency that wants to fund political campaigning both within elections and between them. Our neighbours to the south are in the midst of a great debate about the meaning of "fair and balanced" in both the news and entertainment media, but here in Canada it is not even a question. These calls for funding are simply to increase the clout of the NDP and Liberal parties in popular culture, and unless I see evidence of a change, we will be taking all action we can to insure that only an entertainment industry that reflects the right and the left wings present in our culture shall be deemed deserving of financial support of the right and left wings present in the taxpayer.

The same argument rings true today, the only shame is that the UCP isn't making it, and instead only cutting them off on stark utilitarian grounds. From the Edmonton Journal article:

Alberta artists are lamenting their latest funding hit, and pointing their fingers squarely at the provincial government.

Citing concerns over the safety and feasibility of arts projects in the wake of COVID-19, the Alberta government recently shelved grant applications dating back to the March submission period. Instead, artists are urged to reapply for the next quarterly grant deadline in September.

Seems more than fair. You couldn't even rehearse for most of the past 3 months, so why waste precious taxpayer dollars that could fund those poor poor nurses on the front line who need PPE or they'll die?

Oh, but that's using their argument against them. It's only to be used against you remember.

“They’ve blindsided us,” said Vern Thiessen, award-winning playwright and former director of Workshop West Playwrights’ Theatre. “They’re betraying a long-term vision that the arts are critical not only to the culture of Alberta but the economic bottom line of our province. As an Albertan, that was something I used to hold up high — per capita we used to fund our artists here. It’s really disappointing.

“I think what makes people angry is the way it’s been done, with zero consultation. It tells artists not only do we not care about the arts, we don’t even care enough to tell you that we’ll be making these decisions.”

The move to cancel funding leads to larger questions about the government’s commitment to the arts, and whether artists will maintain residence and continue operating in Alberta, he said.

However, the public health agency had previously said it expected about 25% to have been infected by 1 May and Tom Britton, a maths professor who helped develop its forecasting model, said the figure from the study was surprising.

“It means either the calculations made by the agency and myself are quite wrong, which is possible, but if that’s the case it’s surprising they are so wrong,” he told the newspaper Dagens Nyheter. “Or more people have been infected than developed antibodies.”

Björn Olsen, a professor of infectious medicine at Uppsala University, said herd immunity was a “dangerous and unrealistic” approach. “I think herd immunity is a long way off, if we ever reach it,” he told Reuters after the release of the antibody findings.

Tegnell has denied herd immunity is a goal in itself, saying Sweden aims instead to slow the spread of the virus enough for health services to cope. But he has also said countries that imposed strict lockdowns could be more vulnerable to a second wave of infections because a smaller percentage of their populations would be immune.

There's quite a bit in here to unpack. The first thing is that the lying leftists at The Guardian are still trying to trick and delude readers into misunderstanding both the British lockdown and the Swedish one. It's true that 7.3% of the population having antibodies is surprisingly low: but Jon Henley either doesn't know (because he's stupid) or is lying about (because he's evil) the fact that every single country is depending on their population developing antibodies. The lockdowns were to keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed. They were not to keep people at all from getting the virus: short of shutting everything down (including hospitals, grocery stores, and possibly utilities including internet and electricity) for 21 days and letting everybody with the Wuhan Flu either get over it or die lonely in their homes. Meanwhile Sweden locked down old age homes and the virus still ripped through them like Mike Morrison through the anus of the 12 year old boy next door.

Generally there are two possible things to takeaway from the antibody results: either the virus is so difficult for the general population to get that we'd all need to spit in each other's faces all day to spread this sucker, or that many people who get the Wuhan Flu don't develop antibodies for it.

The first option at first seems impossible with the nursing home situation, until you remember that those who are least at risk of getting the Wuhan Flu are also least likely to receive/transmit it. In other words, the current shutdowns are overkill but on the flip side "superspreader events" seem relatively rare and easy to predict. Preventing mass infections is therefore relatively easy: Toronto parks can be as full as people not named John Tory want and the community spread will be shockingly low. Large indoor events will have to be curtailed which is unfortunate, and air travel will be a giant pain in the ass for months or even years, but everything from bars to tattoo parlours can reopen relatively quickly.

The second option is scarier if you are in a high risk group and like to stay alive, but ultimately better for those who are in low risk groups and just want things to get back to normal. Not some mythical "new normal". Normal. Like...normal. If the Swedes really have been spreading the virus to each other en masse, which the death toll and number of symptomatic cases the would seem to indicate, then many of the asymptomatic cases are so asymptomatic that the body doesn't develop antibodies at all. This does not bode well for the "wait for vaccine" crowd: if the actual disease doesn't confer antibodies, then a vaccine will be highly unlikely to as well. At best, accurately testing a vaccine will be a huge challenge. Let's say that the 7.3% antibodies represent the correct share of the 25% that were assumed to have contracted the Wuhan Flu and that a vaccine would be as effective as the live virus at inducing antibody generation: that means that only 29.2% of the total population would develop antibodies when exposed to the virus, which means that 2/3rds of the potential vaccine trial patients would give false results. So much for rapid trials of vaccinations! The only remaining question is, of the 70.8% of the general population† who don't develop antibodies, are they still likely to get COVID-19? If their body (apparently) fought it off once without antibodies, can it do it again? Indefinitely? Does it take multiple infections to develop them? Again though, the ultimate result of this is that the "wait for a cure/vaccine" strategy that Björn Olsen proposes is extremely long-term if not impossible.

† There's a yuuuuge caveat there by the way, did you catch it? The 7.3% of people with antibodies isn't exactly the "general population": it excludes those who are active cases or deaths

One notes that Olsen, who is the Swedish media to-go critic for the Tegnell "first and second wave together" strategy, is plum out of options to push for in both scenarios. He's hungry for a lockdown, but the antibody study that he latched onto in order to bash Sweden's current strategy isn't exactly doing him any favours. One possibility completely negates the lockdown logic, the other severely batters it. Notice he's not being asked to defend the lockdown in lieu of this new concerning information.

My partner, Loic, and I are the owners of the Canteen, a casual sandwich-and-lobster-roll restaurant in Provincetown, Massachusetts, a vacation destination at the very tip of Cape Cod. We are grateful for our customers—flattered, even, that a diner might want our food badly enough to scale furniture for it. But now that our first summer with the coronavirus is at hand, I’m terrified.

Open up with talk about "my partner Loic", that's good...that's some good work there. Put their soothing minds at ease. You don't have to explicitly note that both of you are evil poofters, just let them put two and two together.

Known for its open-hearted embrace of outsiders and outcasts, especially the LGBTQ community, Provincetown isn’t the average beach destination.

And there's the second two for you to put together. See, we're just like you, we support disgusting lifestyle choices more than those other places you might be seeing on the news!

Cooped up in large towns and cities, many people heading into their third month of quarantine have been trying to decide whether they should visit their favorite summer destinations this year. My answer is an unsatisfying maybe. Instinctively, we want them to come; in fact, our livelihoods depend on them coming. Businesses like mine are the backbone of the cities and towns where we operate. As we prepare for the summer rush, we are struggling to find the line between helping and hurting our community, and we wonder how we’ll know if we cross it. And we are basing decisions on our own hunches—with little official guidance from authorities from which we could use a lot more help.

"Oh why oh why isn't the government helping us more by giving us guidelines?" Does this sound like the actions of a person who is at all "with it" mentally?

Three schools of thoughts have emerged. First is the salvage-our-summer crowd, who are worried most about the economic viability of our town. They aren’t a monolithic group, nor are they MAGA-flag-waving protesters insisting that they have a right to a salon dye job or 18 holes of golf.

So people who want to go to a salon or a golf course, by sly extension, aren't worried about the "economic viability of their towns"? This is the sort of irregular verbs The Atlantic is so famous for: when I want the economy reopened I'm talking about the economic viability of our town. When they want the economy reopened they "insist they have a right to a dye job".

Red hats are rare in Provincetown, where Hillary Clinton won 88 percent of the vote in 2016. The people pushing our town to reopen believe in science and know the virus is real.

Forgetting for a moment that it's 1000% true that people do have a right to visit a salon or a golf course, isn't it funny that right after talking about "oh our people aren't monolithic" this ass pirate turns around to imply that "the MAGA-flag-waving" folks he just finished besmirching are a monolithic group (that it's okay for you to sneer at).

The people pushing our town to reopen believe in science and know the virus is real. They include business owners who cannot survive without a year’s income and service workers who, in the best of times, live paycheck to paycheck.

Like, say, a salon owner? Also, as for your regular reminder: all those MAGA hat wearers also believe in science...that's why they support Conversion Therapy to cure your disease.

In summer towns, residents count on the income they make during the summer to pay their rent or mortgage for the entire year. Some of them are undocumented workers who can’t collect unemployment and aren’t receiving health-care benefits at all.

Second, there’s the shut-it-all-down contingent—those who have been calling for a complete ban on summer visitors this year. Many people in this camp are older or living with illnesses. Literally scared for their lives, they argue that making money this July and August will come at the cost of our community's health. And how many deaths are we willing to inflict to save our economy? Two? Twenty? Two hundred?

A third group—which includes me—hopes that, through the right set of rules and regulations, we can limit the spread of the virus while keeping our economy hobbling along.

Spoiler Alert: you can't.

The next day, Loic and I arose after a sleepless night to plot the future of our restaurant, determined never to repeat what had just happened.

Like the sodomy?

We would remove menu items, such as lobster rolls, geared mostly to the weekend crowds and instead push the grilled-cheese sandwiches and vegan grain bowls more popular with townies.

Nice work again nodding to ridiculous belief system of the typical The Atlantic reader: no more of that boo! wicked! innocent lobsters being murdered for (quelle horrors!) visitors), instead some nice vegan bowls for local food only folks!

Later that week, we set up a grocery store in what used to be our dining room, and allowed people to order those items online for delivery or curbside pickup. And we started offering free fruits and vegetables, cleaning supplies, and pantry staples to members of our community in need.

After ordering food and eating it off premise, people have been leaving used cups, forks, and spoons on our grounds rather than throwing them away at home—forcing us to handle items that have been in people’s mouths.

For somebody who takes another man's cock up his ass, Rob Anderson sure got squeamish on us quickly didn't he? Dude, you're in the food services industry: your entire survival is predicated on the theory that you can wash germs off before touching things that ultimately make it into strangers' mouths. Try to put 19 seconds thought into how to make it work the other way.

Hire a bouncer, someone on Facebook chided me later. But margins in our industry are thin, especially now. And when a casual restaurant can’t sell sandwiches without protection from hired muscle, the real problem lies elsewhere.

Low margins, eh? Like you can't be just giving produce away, eh? I'm not in general sympathetic but despite stronger than average profitability, hair salons don't have great margins either. Golf courses have negative margins, so when this tinkerbell complains about people wanting to exercise their human rights bear in mind he's also calling for businesses on either end of his margins going under. Remember the small-ish tear I advised earlier? That's why. This sperm-bumper is quick to dismiss other people wanting to frequent businesses.

Often, when things have been at their worst here, our town’s police officers have walked by, seen what’s happening, and said and done nothing. On paper, of course, this doesn’t make any sense. How can we expect to run a business while also being the sole enforcers of measures meant to keep society safe?

Oh good, more cries for the state to get involved. Part of you wants to remind this useless piece of trash that nobody asked him to be "enforcers" to "keep society safe" in the first place. Try to make sure your staff doesn't get infected. Try to make sure your staff doesn't infect your customers. Understand that in the long run (ie longer than probably 8-12 months) you and every other person and business will ultimately fail at this. You didn't "fail" in any sort of grand mission to save the galaxy.

I run a restaurant in a seaside town. I’m not an epidemiologist or a fortune-teller. But as I’m forced to make what could be life-and-death decisions—with little official support or guidance—I’m left no choice but to pretend I am.

Almost like you're some sort of independent citizen in a functioning western civilized society who doesn't need to have any of these specialized skills in order to decide for himself (and his fellow ass pirate, I supposes) what to enact in his own personal sphere, and similarly what public policies to advocate for.

That's too much to expect from him though. Just another failed life choice. On second thought, I'll have a lobster roll elsewhere: extra lettuce. Hold the small-ish tear.

The prime minister is not acting as a prime minister should, or should be allowed to. He has not the right to end the deliberative and accountability functions of Parliament.

Me:

Parliament is by far the most important institution in Canada: in this critical time in our history facing the worst economic collapse since the time Queen Victoria signed the British North America Act, we must meet. We must have the opportunity to debate and deliberate the unhitherto expenditures of money from the public purse. We must be able to, in full view of the public we serve, question and challenge the claims made by unelected advisors to the Minority Government.

Rex:

The question is: Are we a country, or are we not? A country has a Parliament. It has representatives from every district in the country who meet and debate. It sounds national themes. It gives national responses. It cannot shrink to a two-month solo performance in front of a complacent handful of press, and the daily iteration of “we have your back.” That is not a country. It is a sideshow.

Me:

Canadians deserve to know that the decisions that are being made, many of which have larger or longer reaching impacts than any ever before made by the Federal Government, are not being made by a tiny cabal answerable only to a small number of the Members of this House who serve extremely narrow regional and ideological masters and instead are being made by a majority of Parliament who represent every person region and belief system within our shores.

Rex:

Mr. Trudeau has been indoors in a cottage for 50 plus days. His morning standups under the Tent of Commons have passed the tedious stage, passed dreary, passed repetitive, clichéd and annoying. They are as useless as they are arrogant. And that’s a high bar on both. One person, even a PM, is not a government.
Trudeau is either scared of the House of Commons, or he has no regard for it. Perhaps it’s both.

Me:

It is wholly wicked and undemocratic to have Canada be led from the front porch of a building the vast majority of Canadians would be arrested for trying to visit, by a man who less than eight months ago failed to obtain the confidence of this House.

Rex:

The minority in power has opened the sluices on the greatest spending binge in our history, at the precise moment our national economy is, perhaps since the Great Depression itself, at its most feeble, its weakest, its most precarious.

The greatest spending in the weakest economy, millions in emergency relief, businesses by the thousands almost certainly to fail. And somehow this paradox of a closed Commons during a woesome crisis wears on without a bleep.

Me:

Canadians deserve a full and frank accounting of what the Government of Canada will be doing, what goals we are aiming to accomplish, when and how we will know if we have succeeded or failed at them, and what information we know for certain and which information we are merely guessing or modelling.

Rex:

Here’s the rule to follow: If you don’t want to be in the House of Commons, then resign from it. Imitate the military. Show some honour. This rule should apply to all 338.

Here’s the shorter version: Get back or get out.

Me:

Anyone who has been chosen to pay this bargain of a price and still rejects the bill is free to abandon this duty forever: but they should be forevermore banished from this House and the sacred mission it has to play in the days ahead.

Now we face the unintended consequences: delays in medical care for non-COVID-19 patients, educational impacts, the looming pandemic of mental-health issues, and massive economic repercussions. Widespread restrictions certainly cannot be sustained until an effective and safe vaccine is widely available, which may not occur for years, if ever. And the virus is unlikely to disappear from Canada or the world any time soon.

It is important to point out that more than 95 per cent of COVID-19 deaths occurred in those over 60, compared with none under age 20. Protection of the former group deserves the most attention; this will be easier if limited resources are diverted from other, low-risk groups.

In Canada, the individual rate of death from COVID-19 for people under 65 years of age is six per million people, or 0.0006 per cent. This is roughly equivalent to the risk of dying from a motor vehicle accident during the same time period. In other countries where data are available, 0.6-2.6 per cent of deaths in people below age 65 have occurred in people without known underlying health conditions. Although the risk of death is small in this group, ongoing research to discover the critical risk factors for death from COVID-19 in younger age groups must remain a top priority. This will permit us to better protect those at risk, while loosening restrictions for the majority.

It is unlikely that zero infections can be achieved for COVID-19, which fundamentally spreads like influenza or the common cold, including from those without symptoms. The virus causes disease so mild in many people that it can circulate without detection, until it is introduced into a vulnerable population. While some advocate waiting for a vaccine, that would mean continuation of a lockdown for an unknown period of time. This approach ignores how complicated and difficult vaccine development can be. It is entirely possible that in two years we will still not have a vaccine, and very probable that a vaccine will not eliminate the virus entirely. Hence, we need to come to terms with the fact that we cannot eliminate this virus. At best, we can continue to slow its spread, and protect the frail and elderly.

Okay look I could do the memory lane thing all day. When you have a total of four physician/professors who specialize in infectious diseases publishing an article about an infectious disease you would hope at least one paragraph doesn't just look like they read through Third Edge of the Sword for 3 hours and then just paraphrased what they saw. Well, fortunately, they do:

Governments now propose that we test and trace all contacts of identified cases of disease. As we embark on this stage, we will find cases that would previously have gone unnoticed. Ironically, the better our testing capacity and the more we look, the more we will find, making it appear that disease is worsening, when it isn’t. This is particularly problematic as restrictions are being lifted. Should we automatically reinstate restrictions when the number of cases increases? No.

That's actually an incredibly insightful point: as we get to (and well past!) where the lockdowns should have ended, we're getting additional testing capacity (in Alberta at least, other provinces results may vary) which will make it look like the number of cases is increasing, in reality we're just catching the milder cases that were explicitly forbidden from getting the tests a month ago. Unfortunately, squeamish governments have decided to re-instate shutdowns if the number of cases rises: that their own policies are the reason for this either never occurs to them or they are deliberately going to blame the citizenry in order to hold onto their power.

Instead we should use local hospital capacity as the guiding principle, ensuring that all patients who need hospital or ICU care can get it. This is not going to be a one-size-fits-all solution: what happens in an urban centre is different from what happens in smaller cities or rural areas of Canada.

We need a tailored regional approach if the local hospital system gets strained. Germany, for example, chose a local threshold of 50 new cases per 100,000 population per week for when reinstitution of lockdown measures must be considered based on local capacity. The Ontario equivalent using the same threshold would be 7,300 new cases per week, or 1,043 per day. In contrast, Ontario has recommended a much lower provincewide threshold of 200 new community cases of infections per day as a threshold for action. This is based on an estimate of the ability of the system to accommodate the required contact tracing for every diagnosed case at the provincial level. The number of community cases should not be the metric of choice for relaxing restrictions as it is not a reflection of the more critical measure, hospital capacity. In addition, time spent on contact tracing is neither necessary nor feasible for all community cases, as it misses asymptomatic and covert transmission. Instead, testing and contact tracing should be focused mainly on hospitals and long-term care institutions, where the impacts of disease are the highest.

Accepting ongoing sustainable levels of transmission might be a healthier option in the long term. While the lockdown has decreased transmission of the virus in the short run, it has also prevented the development of population immunity in low-risk people. We should embrace the benefits of the development of immunity in a growing segment of the population. Right now, the only means of achieving this is by natural infection. Recent data suggests that the human body reacts no differently to this virus than to other respiratory viruses: it mounts immunity, and once achieved, the virus gets cleared and there is protection from future infection. Given the novelty of the virus we do not have long-term data, but we know from 2003 SARS that immunity may last up to 13 years. Once a vaccine is available that would be the preferred option. However, there is no guarantee of whether and when a vaccine will be available, or how effective it will be, to say nothing of how broad the uptake of it will be in the population.

Will this approach cost more deaths? Sweden, which allowed for more community transmission, is the measure of this strategy. More deaths per capita did occur than in Canada. On the positive side, Sweden’s number of new cases has peaked and Sweden will be better protected against future waves and the need for future restrictions. In the absence of a vaccine, it is a question of paying now or paying later. While the realistic goal of Canada’s lockdown was to delay deaths, it was never going to avoid them entirely. One year from now, Canada and Sweden may well have the same number of deaths per capita, but Canada may have had significantly more economic and social impacts.

Canada needs a model that uses a hospital capacity-based approach to guide local lifting and reintroduction of more restrictive measures, as necessary. In the absence of hospital strain, consider continuing with a swift release of lockdown measures, to include opening of elementary schools, playgrounds, workplaces, stores and restaurants, while following basic physical distancing rules and voluntary limitations to social gatherings, while continuing to ban mass gatherings and protecting the elderly and those at highest risk.

"Even within those jurisdictions, you need to hone in on certain areas," she said as she urged authorities to focus their efforts on hot spots and vulnerable areas such as long-term care homes.

Her assessment proved true on Thursday as various provinces experienced setbacks and successes in the fight against the virus.

New Brunswick's provincial legislature abruptly adjourned, a day after officials confirmed a health-care worker who had travelled outside New Brunswick was at the origin of a cluster that has grown to at least six cases in the Campbellton area.

Premier Blaine Higgs has said the health-care worker was in contact with "multiple patients" over a two-week period after returning to the province without self-isolating. The area, near the border with Quebec, will now have to return to tighter restrictions on physical distancing.

No. They. Don't.

This virus will spread. The question is if your health systems are overwhelmed. Provinces refuse to provide this information which means they aren't. Higgs can leave everything alone and the same number of New Brunswick residents will die.